Iberdrola wants judge’s decision by May 23

It’s possible that the judge overseeing the Iberdrola-Energy East case before the state Public Service Commission could make a decision by the end of May.

An evidentiary hearing was held earlier this month, and briefs in the case are due next month to the administrative law judge, Rafael Epstein.

An attorney for Iberdrola asked whether the judge could issue his decision by May 23, with briefs for exceptions due June 4. The attorney said the date was proposed by the companies and other parties in the case, which likely also means PSC staff.

The PSC’s five commissioners would be sent the decision, and they would consider it for the vote they must make to approve or deny the merger. State law requires that the PSC find tangible benefits for New Yorkers in the deal, such as rate cuts.

With a recommended decision issued in late May, the PSC could vote on the merger at its June 18 meeting in Albany.

That would be good for Iberdrola, which has hoped to wrap up the merger, first anounced last summer, by the end of June.

But at a March 20 hearing, Epstein said it was up to PSC secretary Jaclyn Brilling to set the timetable for the decision.

“We’ll just leave the issuance of a recommended decision and the date of the exceptions brief as a matter to be reported to the secretary as a proposal,” Epstein said, according to transcript. “We’ll just leave it as that.”

PSC spokesman Jim Denn said this afternoon that no date has been set on the issuance of a recommended decision.

Of course the PSC staff and the companies could reach a settlement at any time that would take the case out of the hands of the judge. The two sides had been working on a proposal earlier, but those talks broke down.